


Hello Boys, I'm Back!

by jessoftheweirding



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Darcy Lewis, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 13:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10361922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessoftheweirding/pseuds/jessoftheweirding
Summary: Inspired by a tumblr post by Abbie.Somehow, Darcy Lewis has found herself outside of the Avenger's circle. Stuck in a dead-end job, she's close to resigning herself to a life devoid of any real impact when something happens that brings her right back into the insanity. This time, she won't let herself be underestimated and shuffled off. She is Darcy Lewis, Political Scientist and Wrangler Extraordinaire, and nothing will keep her from finding shady government organizations to topple or sexy WWII vets to tumble.*Mostly canon compliant... except where it isn't*





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by a Tumblr post by Abbie, who was gracious enough to let me play with her idea. As this fic is unbeta'd, any weirdness or mistakes are mine alone, so please feel free to offer any criticism you may have!
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter is pretty exposition-heavy; the following chapters will be where the fun bits really start. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

It was quiet in the diner that morning. With a bored sigh, Darcy Lewis went through the kitchen to storeroom and grabbed the broom. The late morning shift only had three people: herself as waitress, Daniel the cook, and Sam the shift manager and general backup. At the moment staff outnumbered customers, as only the only guest so far was Mr. Henderson who, as usual, had ordered a cheese danish, a black coffee, and the local paper. Once delivered, he settled in to read and really didn’t like to be disturbed until he left; Darcy had been on the receiving end of his disapproving stare often enough to learn his preferred routine. As she passed the register, Darcy shared a tired smile with Sam who was busying himself with the weekly inventory list. She could have helped him, but couldn’t bring herself to care, and thus decided to start sweeping. Daniel, she knew, would be busy browsing Reddit while waiting for orders, and once she was done with the floor she’d bug him about any new cute cat gifs that cropped up that day.

The only sounds in the room were the swish of the broom, the occasional turned page from either Sam or Mr. Henderson, and the tv hanging from its corner rack. The volume was low, but Darcy could still hear the reporter droning on about _“dangerous criminals”_ and _“threats to American safety”_.

Darcy snorted. The reporter was talking about Steve Rogers, of course, and those who’d gone dark with him after the clusterfuck that was the Accords. Though she may only be a lowly waitress now, Darcy knew politics and, even without seeing the official documents, knew that the Accords were a crock of shit, and definitely not in the Avengers’ favor. If only she’d been there, she would have _told_ them-- but no. She hadn’t been, so she couldn’t have, and once again, Darcy just had to deal with it.

She was here, in Bumfuck, Virginia, and no longer had any place with the Avengers, despite once calling them friends. Friends? Well a few of them, certainly. Okay, maybe only a couple. But she and Jane were closer than blood, dammit, and Thor had called her his ‘little lightening sister’, so that must have counted for something, right? Clint was definitely her buddy, given all the times they’d sparred (verbally, she didn’t have a death wish,) over coffee and the inside jokes that had cropped up after the whole Jack-Booted Thug thing. Natasha still terrified her though, and despite laughing at Darcy’s antics with Clint, or actually showing up for Margarita night, Darcy doubted that the terrifyingly competent Russian had really paid her any attention. Stark had really only had eyes for Jane, and went above and beyond to court Jane away from SHIELD over to the Stark Side, promising things better than cookies- unlimited funding and brand-new machines.

(Darcy had been hard-pressed to keep herself from laughing during his whole spiel; Jane had been sold from the minute Thor said he was living at the Tower, never mind the new equipment. But, what Stark didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him and Darcy recognized the signs of Science!mania and knew he wouldn’t slow his roll until he was good and ready. She almost stopped him and ordered him to bed just to see what would happen, but later decided that would be rude.)

She’d only seen Bruce briefly as she followed behind Jane during their tour of the labs, but Steve she’d actually talked to a few times, including one memorable morning in the kitchen when he was grabbing a snack after his morning workout. It was Jane’s first day in her own lab and had wanted Darcy to get an early start with her and the other new assistants. Darcy grumbled a bit over Jane’s sudden transformation into a dreaded _morning person_ but the view on that particular morning had made it all worth it. She might not remember what they’d said to each other, but the image of Steve Rogers in all his sweaty, clinging T-shirt glory would stay with her forever. _Holy Abs of Freedom, Batman!_

She had been _so close_. Not just to Captain Abs, but to all of them. _The Avengers_. She had bested the God of Lightning, rescued civilians when the Destroyer hit Puente Antiguo, and even faced off against angry Tolkien Elves! She was even living in Stark Tower! She had been a part of something bigger and even though most of the time she had been scared shitless, she’d also never felt more alive.

The more she thought about it, the more Darcy knew that she’d let something wonderful slip away. Clearly, waiting tables was just a bit of a let down after helping save the world, but she didn’t know how to get back into it. She was no deep cover secret agent, ready to be activated when the need arose, (what, the Mission Impossible series was one of her favorites), just a former intern who once made the Black Widow laugh. Jane was the only person she still kept in contact with, but even that was spotty because Science!Jane had no attention span for anything other than her machine readouts. Darcy considered herself lucky if her texts even got read, never mind responded to. Emails were easier, but even those had become shorter and more delayed the longer Darcy spent away from Jane. Darcy knew her friend and knew that it _probably_ wasn’t intentional, but still... Three years was a long time to be apart when one person was super busy and the other was, well, not.

She should have found a way to stick around longer. It wasn’t like she’d been kicked out, exactly, just...made irrelevant. After their tussle with the Elves, Thor had rushed Jane back to Stark Tower to keep her in sight and under his protection. It made perfect sense, of course, and normally Darcy would have gone along with them, but Thor had taken Mjolnir Air and, well, someone had to stay and pack up Jane’s work. Which Darcy had done, with only a small amount of grumbling, and it only took a few days to get everything packed up and off to New York. Although they were still being funded by SHIELD, Stark had sent the jet over and even had a packing crew ready to load it up, which Darcy’s back definitely appreciated. She might have liked finally getting a paycheck thanks to SHIELD grants, but they were notorious for not helping Jane or Darcy any further than they absolutely had to.

Darcy got to Stark Tower around the same time that Thor and Jane finally left his quarters, which worked out pretty well. She was just as impressed as Jane by Stark’s R&D floors but started getting nervous the moment he introduced the veritable horde of lab assistants, every one of them with degrees in hard sciences. Jane started setting up her lab right away and Darcy tried to find her place amongst the other assistants, but she saw the writing on the wall as soon as Jane started spouting off something science-y about her research and the other lab rats _actually understood her and started talking back._ Darcy was no idiot, but she’d never quite gotten the knack for what Jane was talking about, so most of her exclamations had gone over Darcy’s head without much response. Sure, she’d been great at getting Jane’s notes organized, recording equipment readings, and generally keeping her scientist fed and watered, but there were three other people in that lab who could easily do all that and more.

Rather than waiting to officially become obsolete, Darcy decided to make like a tree and immediately started looking for a new place to stay. She knew right away that she’d have to leave New York; while she’d been pretty frugal with SHIELD’s paychecks, her balance wouldn’t last a minute in the ridiculously expensive city. Even DC was out, despite being the nexus for all of her collegiate education, because it too was stupidly expensive. So, she looked farther south and found some promising things in a major military town. She waited to tell Jane and Thor until she had all her things in order; she knew they would both try to convince her to stay but she couldn’t live in Thor’s spare room forever. Despite their kindness, she wouldn’t let herself become that friend. As expected, Thor profusely protested her leaving, swearing that he would speak to someone about finding her a place to stay. Jane didn’t want her to leave either but, when pressed, couldn’t deny that things were moving a lot smoother in the lab when she had assistants who actually understood her work. So, Darcy had only smiled and told Thor that she had to find her own way outside of Jane’s shadow. He’d been troubled but eventually gave in, pulling her in for a tight hug. She’d heard him murmuring something into her hair, and hoped whatever blessing he’d bestowed would help her.

Her last night in the Tower was memorialized with a final Margarita Party, just like back in Puente Antiguo. Not really expecting to see anyone aside from Jane and Thor on her last night in the Tower, Darcy was surprised when both Clint and Natasha showed up. While she may not remember much of of that night, Darcy is still damn proud of the fact that she could add “Drank with the Black Widow” to her social resume. Not that anyone would ever see it, but still…

The following morning had found Darcy on a Greyhound bus bound for Hampton Roads, Virginia. A military town, Darcy thought that she might be able to use her SHIELD internship to her advantage and actually get involved with something pertinent to her degree. She had a small reserve of funds and hoped that it would last long enough for her to land a decent job. Thanks to Craigslist, she’d been able to find a fairly reasonable room for rent not too far from one of the military bases, and she immediately began scouring all the local employment sites for a suitable position. Unfortunately she started running into snags from the very start: not only was most of her recent resume unusable due to a staggering amount of SHIELD NDAs, but even Jane’s awesome recommendation was off-limits due to causing too many questions. All she was left with were some exceedingly vague job descriptions and nothing solid to recommend her for any sort of local political or even administrative position. In the eyes of every HR department everywhere, Darcy was just another recent graduate with no real experience. In addition to being a military town, there were also several colleges in her new area dumping out thousands of equally (un)qualified applicants for every position she applied for… and most of them hadn’t taken any “time off” before entering the workforce.

It wasn’t long before Darcy had to move yet again, this time to further away from city centers where the rent was cheaper but the job prospects were even more dire. Feeling very much like she had taken several steps backward, Darcy finally scored a job as a waitress in a small Mom and Pop diner. Here she was sweeping spotless floors when only a few years prior she had been one of the first people to meet someone from another planet. Sure, she was able to make ends meet thanks to a few popped buttons and a score of bored blue-collar workers, but this was not the life that she had planned when she left New York. Darcy knew that at some point she would have had to step outside of Jane’s genius shadow, but she wished it hadn’t been so sudden. She missed Jane and Thor dearly, as they had been her greatest support system. She even missed Clint’s bad jokes and Natasha’s superior drinking skills and she _definitely_ missed making Steve Rogers blush when she stared at his abs.

Darcy stood in the middle of the diner floor, staring up at the news report while her mind wandered over missed opportunities. She wondered how Jane was doing, and if she was eating enough to fuel that giant brain. She worried about Thor and all of the drama going down in Asgard. She believed that Steve was no threat to the American people, and that whoever was with him was bound to be a decent and heroic person. Finally, Darcy knew, in some way that she couldn’t explain, that somehow she had to find her way back to Jane and the Avengers, all of them. And not as a poor vagabond looking for a couch to crash on, but as a valued asset in her own right. Others may have underestimated her as just the busty intern but Darcy knew politics, and she knew people, and she could talk her way through just about anything. Sooner or later something with Sokovia or the Accords had to change and Darcy would seize the chance to prove her worth. She would show them, all of them, that she, Darcy Lewis, was a force to be reckoned with and--

The door chimed as a customer entered the restaurant, causing Darcy to jump and nearly drop her broom. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind an ear, she cast a quick glance around to see if anyone had seen her start; Sam met her gaze with a cocked eyebrow and she flushed lightly. Sweeping the small dirt pile back towards the diner counter, she threw a welcoming smile to the two police officers who’d just entered. Finally, there was work to be done and Darcy had better get to it if she ever wanted to last long enough to get her life back on track.

“Good morning folks and welcome. My name is Darcy and I’ll be taking care of you in just a second. Please feel free to sit down anywhere and I’ll be right over…”


End file.
